


A Good Influence

by Book_Wyrm



Category: Better Call Saul (TV), Breaking Bad
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack Treated Seriously, Dom/sub, Drug Use, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Homophobic Language, I guess this fic is irrefutable evidence I've lost control of my life, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Original Characters but they don't do much, Rated E for Eventually, Slow Burn, Smoking, Warning for Author's weird inept attempts at incorporating Spanish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:02:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27689339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Book_Wyrm/pseuds/Book_Wyrm
Summary: Wildly AU from BCS 2.04 on.“The boy could stand to be humiliated.Humillación—humildad.You see? Gustavo learned that lesson a long time ago. He took it to heart, wouldn’t you say? Now he’sverycautious. Talk to Juan Bolsa. Have him put this nephew of yours on Gustavo’s crew when you have him out of prison. He can have a real job. Drive one of the trucks. Fry some chicken. It’ll be good for him.”
Relationships: Gustavo Fring/Tuco Salamanca
Comments: 15
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I blame my usual partner in crime, [almadeamla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/almadeamla/), for coming up with this gloriously cracky ship with me, and for kicking around headcanons until I had no choice but to drag myself out of my lockdown-induced depression den and write something for it. I also owe her a massive debt of thanks for keeping me from embarrassing myself too badly on my attempts to incorporate Spanish. Not all heroes wear capes.

**:::**

It’s Don Eladio’s idea, of course. Something like this could only come from the top down.

“This is what happens when children grow up without their father,” he says, and for all his tone is mournful, he seems to be in a decent enough mood. Not that this means much, given how quickly Don Eladio’s moods change. “This is sad, Hector. Very sad. Your mother did what she could, I know, but your brother should have been there.”

Hector agrees. He agrees with most of what Don Eladio says, whether he means it or not. This time he means it.

“What happened to him? Didn’t he used to be a sweet boy? I remember he used to run to me, calling _Papá, Papá_ —” He pauses, bringing his cigar to his lips. The smell of smoke twists into the smell of chlorine wafting off the pool. On an exhale, “I’ve got the right one, don’t I? That was Tuco?”

“It could have been.”

“What happened to him? Biker crank, you said?”

“That’s what it is.”

Don Eladio takes another, longer pull on his cigar, shaking his head. It’s near sunset, the end of another pressure-cooker summer day, but already already there’s a cold desert breeze cutting down from the mountains.

“Where would I be if I squandered my days on _biker crank_ , Hector?”

Hector replies that he doesn’t know—“Roughly where you’re sitting now, I think. You’d have found your way here one way or another.”

“I think so, too,” Don Eladio says, his gaze turning distant. “But not everyone has the same— _drive_. The same _ambition_. Does Tuco have ambition?”

Hector personally thinks Tuco would be content to spend the rest of his life counting money and snorting a substance-of-the-week off some _puta_ ’s tits. But that’s not the right answer.

“Right now, I think his only ambition is not to be in prison.”

“Of course it is. And when he gets out? What then? He draws too much attention.”

Danger. Hector chooses his next words. “I’ve been lax with him. Clearly he needs a tighter leash, until he learns caution.”

Don Eladio nods, his gaze still distant, but his brow furrows. “Are you the right person to teach him that?”

“Of course. I’ll knock some sense into—”

“Not _sense_ , Hector, _caution_.”

“Have I been incautious?”

He must say it a little too sharply, or a note of offense has crept into his tone, because Don Eladio swings his head around to fix him with a flat look. It holds, one second, two, twenty, before he breaks into an easy grin and laughs.

“Of course not,” he says. “I’m teasing you. You’re always so serious, Hector. Always so worried… You know I’m happy with you. You know I love you. You know there’s no one else I trust like _you_.”

It’s entirely possible he means it—or means it as much as he ever means anything, from one moment to the next. For all the years they’ve known each other, the only thing Hector really knows about Don Eladio is there’s no telling what he’ll choose to care about on a given day—with the exception of money.

He tries to smile, and inclines his head, and they sit for a while in silence. The sky is darkening like a bruise, hot red cooling to angry-looking purple, and the breeze is settling in to stay. The matter seems settled. Don Eladio gets to his feet, and Hector copies him.

“You can take care of this, can’t you? I believe in last chances—I believe in so many chances—you know better than anyone how forgiving I am—but I don’t want to be embarrassed.”

“You won’t be.”

“What my people do reflects on me. A little prison time is nothing. But biker crank? He fights some old man in the parking lot of—”

“That ‘old man’,” Hector begins, anger spiking, but Don Eladio isn’t listening.

“Will he learn? If you keep him on this tight leash of yours?”

“He’ll learn.”

“You know who’s very cautious?”

“You are.”

Don Eladio laughs again, all white teeth and crinkling crows feet, and claps him on the shoulder. “Knock it the fuck off, Hector,” he says, still smiling. “What have I done that makes you think I want to keep company with kiss-asses?”

“My apologies, Don Eladio.”

“You’re nervous; it’s alright. You think I’m going to ask you to have your _sobrino_ killed? Would you do it? If I asked?”

His smile is gone now and his eyes are dark and steady. The last shimmering light on the pool is mirrored in his pupils, small and fading.

“Would you, Hector?”

“If it was what you wanted.”

“Of course you would.” Don Eladio’s fingers tighten on his shoulder in what’s clearly intended to be a reassuring gesture, before he—mercifully—steps back and repeats, “You know who’s very cautious?”

“Who?”

“Gustavo.”

His face has lit up again, and he waits with his hands spread, like a comedian who’s just delivered an unfathomably clever punchline and is waiting for the audience’s laughter to die down. Hector doesn’t dare laugh. He doesn’t dare allow his expression to shift. Don Eladio turns his gaze briefly, imploringly skywards, and gives a put-upon sigh.

“I’m saying,” he says, as slow and kind as he might address a child, “that Tuco might take the lesson better if his tight leash were held by someone who isn’t _family_.”

Hector understands. Anger shoots through him like a muscle spasm. He draws upon what thin reserves of self-control he has to keep from spitting at the idea.

Instead, “That would humiliate him.”

He means: _It would humiliate_ me _. Is that the point?_

“The boy could stand to be humiliated. _Humillación—humildad_. You see? Gustavo learned that lesson long ago. He took it to heart, wouldn't you say? Now he’s _very_ cautious. Talk to Juan Bolsa. Have him put this nephew of yours on Gustavo’s crew when you have him out of prison. He can have a real job. Drive one of the trucks. Fry some chicken. It’ll be good for him.”

He doesn’t wait to hear further argument, just turns and heads back into the house. He calls out to the air—there’s always someone listening and ready to rush to action—that he’s in the mood to stay in for dinner. Lights flick on. Through the window, Hector sees the newest wall mural Don Eladio has commissioned jump suddenly to life: a hysterical, half-symmetrical jumble of bold colors, bright greens and yellows and a streak of red like spilled blood.

**:::**


	2. Chapter 2

**:::**

Nacho drives on the way to the jail.

He isn’t sure whether to feign enthusiasm. On the one hand: he should at least _appear_ glad Tuco is going to be out on the streets again, and so soon. On the other hand: Hector, riding shotgun, doesn’t seem glad about it himself. He glowers straight ahead out the windshield into the sharp early morning sun, leaves the radio off, and refuses to put on his seatbelt.

This last detail is cause for some concern.

“Tuco won’t be happy if he finds out I let his tío ride without a seatbelt,” Nacho says, soft and respectful as he can.

No answer. The van’s wheels hum over the cracks in the road.

“Please, Don Hector?”

“Shut the fuck up and drive.”

Nacho focuses on driving.

They’d received a note from the jail instructing them to be there no earlier than eight-thirty, no later than nine. Because Salamancas aren’t used to following instructions in any form, they arrive at eight-twenty and wait in the parking lot.

At nine, they’re still waiting.

At two minutes past, Hector gets out of the car, slams the door, and makes for the front office. Nacho quickly tucks his gun out of sight beneath the seat and hurries to follow.

The CO at reception insists they need to wait in their car. Hector shakes his head. “Tuco Salamanca,” he says.

“Sir, you need to wait in your car.”

“No hablo inglés.”

“Ustedes tienen que esperar en su carro.”

Hector pretends not to understand this either, and settles in to wait. Nacho thinks of a stinging nettle putting down roots.

Voices buzz over intercoms and into walkie talkies. Polished shoes clicking on linoleum, one of the fluorescents on the fritz, jabbing like the beginnings of a headache. Nacho wonders if they design some lights like that, to make anyone unfortunate enough to be under fluorescents _that_ much more miserable, because you’re never just _under_ fluorescents, are you? You’re always _stuck_ under them.

“Señor,” the CO tries again, unimpressed.

They’re spared the altercation by the sound of shouting down the hall. Nacho closes his eyes and tries not to hope. He recognizes that shouting. He figures there’s about a sixty-forty chance they’re going to be leaving here without Tuco after all, because once he’s achieved that volume level, Tuco is about one wrong word, one wrong _look_ from throwing a punch. 

_C’mon, do it. Take a swing at one of the guards. Hit someone Hector can’t bribe and intimidate into refusing to testify against you. C’mon. It’d be so damn easy…_

Nacho’s not buying a lottery ticket any time soon, because with one last scream of frustration, Tuco rounds the corner. He’s back in the same hideously patterned red shirt and rolled-cuff jeans he went in with, and two bulky COs trail along after him. Nacho’s grateful for a final few seconds with a sturdy plexiglass vestibule between them.

“They jacked my shit,” Tuco calls to them, his voice muffled. He turns to glare at the COs at his back and suddenly shouts, “ _My personal effects!_ ”

A buzzer sounds. The plexiglass door swings open, but Tuco’s gotten distracted by glaring down the largest CO, who looks sleepily back at him.

“If I close this door, it doesn’t open again.”

Tuco snarls some last insult under his breath and stomps past, making for the door without another word.

**:::**

Nacho sits in the back seat for the drive away from the jail. Hector slides behind the wheel, and Tuco, of course, jams himself into the front passenger seat, silent and glowering.

Hector buckles his seatbelt and adjusts it carefully before pulling out of the parking lot.

They’ve been on the road five minutes when Tuco apparently reaches his limit on suffering in silence.

“They took my necklace. The boxing gloves!” He occupies the next five minutes with inarticulate snarl-screams of rage, and a litany of creative possible fates for whoever was responsible, and a garnish of praise for the lost bling which Tuco had _picked out himself._

It’s getting more difficult by the day to tell what parts of Tuco’s personality are drug-fueled and which are organic. Nacho doesn’t know the exact status of the drug flow through the jail they just left, but he assumes it’s pretty close to the average: difficult to obtain, but far from impossible for anyone sufficiently motivated. And Tuco is nothing if not motivated.

Eventually the ranting subsides, and they drive on in silence. Most of the morning traffic has broken up by now, and Hector weaves their car easily between lanes.

After another five minutes, Tuco twists around in his seat.

“How’s my abuela?” he asks.

“She’s good,” Nacho says.

“Yeah? You make dinner for her?”

“Yeah.”

“You make her something good?”

“She says she misses your cooking. She asked when you’d be coming back. We— _I_ told her you were on a road trip.” He clears his throat—it’s going to come out sooner or later. “To Yellowstone.”

Tuco’s eyebrows go up. “Yellowstone.”

“Just mention the geysers and you’ll be fine.”

“Do they have moose in Yellowstone?”

“They have everything in Yellowstone.”

“I’m going to tell her I saw a moose. Ha! She’ll love that shit. Hang on, hang on—What about bears?”

“Yeah, they have those, too. Pretty sure.”

“Which sounds better? A bear or a moose?”

“Moose. If you say bear, she’ll worry.”

Tuco nods, turning back around and punching the dial on the radio. The music comes on, obnoxiously loud, blaring bass and a jaunty drum track.

Hector switches it off.

“What the fuck?” Tuco demands. “I want to listen to that.”

Hector turns on his blinker and merges carefully into the left lane. Tuco turns the radio on again. Hector switches it off again.

A vein is twitching at Tuco’s temple. “They don’t have fucking music in prison, alright?” he grinds out, reaching for the dial.

“Jail,” Hector says.

“What?”

“You were in jail. I kept you out of prison.”

Tuco looks like he’s deciding whether or not to be furious. But for the first time, a hint of confusion crosses his face. He sits back in his seat, and Nacho stares at the back of his head, imagining he can actually _see_ the crystal-rusted gears turning in there.

“You missed our exit,” Tuco says after a moment.

Hector says nothing.

“Did you hear me? You missed our exit.”

**:::**

Buildings and billboards and traffic thin. The highway goes down to three lanes, then two, then it isn’t a highway anymore, but a long, empty stretch of road cutting through equally empty countryside, yellow grass and brush, swatches of red dirt, sharp distant mountain ridges. Tuco is sitting uncharacteristically still and quiet—in their world, long drives out into the desert aren’t for leisure.

Nacho tries to get his own breathing under control. The car’s AC is turned but as high as it’ll go, but his back is wet with sweat. Hector hasn’t told him what this is, either, but he suspects he knows. Someone’s figured it out. He doesn’t think Ehrmantraut would have talked, but someone’s figured it out. Hector had probably known for weeks—could have acted on it—but he waited until Tuco was here, so there’d be no question of what happened.

Hector will probably even put the gun in Tuco’s hand. _He wanted you out of the way,_ he’ll say. _This man who you loved like a brother. He wanted you in prison. He set you up._

There’s a dark car parked far off the road. As they draw closer, the shape of it becomes clear, as do two shapes standing still and tall beside it. Nacho knows who it is well before they’re close enough to make out any features: Marco and Leonel Salamanca. Of course.

Hector pulls up alongside the first car—Mercedes, another of course—and parks, kills the engine. Nacho has seen enough people run or beg or feign innocence to know there’s no point in trying any of it. He sits quietly and tries not to think about his father.

“What is this?” Tuco asks.

Hector doesn’t answer him. He turns, giving Nacho a brief, bored look, and says, “Stay in the car.”

**:::**

It would be a perfect opportunity to run, if he was going to. But as Nacho sits with his head down, braced against the back of the front seat — microfiber upholstery in fawn, still smells mostly new — he’s starting to suspect that running would be not only useless, but maybe unnecessary. He’s too far away to make out what’s being said, but in furtive up-glances he catches sight of a scene he’s watched play out a hundred times: Hector in the middle of the desert, flanked on either side by two stone-faced guards, staring down a solitary third party. The only wrong note is that Tuco is the third party.

The conversation picks up in volume-level—or, rather, Tuco picks up in volume level. The way only Tuco _can_ , honestly. Nacho braces himself, still half certain he could be torn out of the car and find himself staring down a shotgun at any second. To stave off the encroaching panic, he casts back for a memory, any memory, and follows the line of association brought up by Tuco’s shouting, all the way back to a mercados públicos they’d once visited together in Tlacolula de Matamoros, years before Tuco had gotten a taste for crystal and become—whatever the hell he is now.

It was impossibly hot even under the market tents, like standing in an oven set to broil, and there the air was full of a chaos of conversations, families calling back and forth, merchants hawking turquoise jewelry and onions and peppers, children laughing, a baby crying. A man selling woven blankets was situated, unfortunately, beside a grill that was putting off waves of heat that sent the air shimmering like the surface of clear water. To make up for the handicap of his location, the blanket seller was shouting out specials into the crowd loud enough to drown out every other merchant within his radius.

“Yo, Tuco,” No-Doze had called as they approached, laughing, “I think this guy’s louder than you.”

Tuco gave him a dark look. “ _No one’s_ louder than me.”

The blanket seller caught the thread of their debate, realized he was being discussed, and called out at once, telling them to put money on it. “A free blanket if you beat me, Señor. You buy one if you lose.”

Tuco looked unsure if he was being tricked. Leaning over to speak near his ear, Nacho said, “Either way, you’re leaving with a new blanket.”

“What do you say, Señor?”

“They _are_ nice looking blankets. Maybe for your abuela?”

Tuco moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with the blanket seller, his face set and serious now that he was formally engaged in competition. Nacho leaned up against a tent pole and folded his arms, settling in to watch the show. No-Doze was laughing. Gonzo calmly put his hands over his ears and braced himself.

“It _is_ a nice blanket,” Tuco rasped later. He was downing shot after shot of tequila, which Nacho had convinced him was an old cure for blown-out vocal cords. Finishing one, he held the empty glass up in a mock toast to himself, said, “A nice _free_ blanket,” and then subsided into what began as laughter and ended as a coughing fit.

Thinking about that version of Tuco now feels like thinking about a stranger, someone Nacho once sat beside on a bus. In the desert ahead of him, the shouting has morphed into what Nacho can only describe as a full-blown tantrum. He picks his head up now to watch, some of his electric terror beginning to subside. Hector stands impassively while Tuco jabs his finger at an invisible accuser and screams, “ALL BECAUSE I WAS _SET UP_?! BY SOME OLD MAN?!”

Hector says something too quiet to catch. Tuco’s meltdown continues. In the few intelligible words woven in between a steady stream of profanities and promises of violence, he’s refusing to do something. No, he absolutely won’t do whatever it is. Juan Bolsa can suck a dick, there’s no way this is happening. Well, Don Eladio can suck a dick, too. No, hell no, not doing it. This isn’t even Tuco’s fault. What was he supposed to do—let some geezer disrespect him? He’s being punished for demanding respect now? And what is all this, dragging him out in the middle of the desert to tell him this, like he’s some rat? Like a _threat_?

“You could call it that,” Hector says, his voice raised enough that Nacho can barely make out the words.

“You’re threatening me, Tío? ME? YOU’RE. THREATENING. ME! After everything I—”

The sun is almost directly overhead, and Tuco is still shouting. Nacho cracks the back door of the car open to get some air, and fishes an old water bottle out from under the seat. Silently, Hector holds out a hand, and Marco or Leonel passes him a bottle of water, which he sips and waits.

The sun is almost over the mountains, and Tuco is still shouting. Hector is leaning back against the hood of the Mercedes now, arms folded and head bent, like he’s dozing. Nacho, having finished his water some time ago, is twisting the empty plastic between his hands, producing a crackling, crunching sound, wondering how long he can twist it before it tears.

He jolts awake, overheated and bleary, with the sky overhead the color of dying coals. Hector raps his knuckles on the car window again and Nacho opens the door and clamors out, his legs heavy and numb.

“Drive my nephew to his abuela’s house for the night,” is all Hector says as he turns and makes for the Mercedes. Marco or Leonel holds the door open for him.

Tuco is standing silently, looking off into nothing, and it’s a long time after the sound of the Mercedes has faded into the distance before Nacho can convince him to move.

**:::**

Doña Salamanca’s house is in a nice suburban neighborhood, which means a nice white neighborhood, which means Nacho parks as far up the driveway as he can fit the car and does his best to usher Tuco inside before they’re identified as Suspicious Looking Persons.

The front room lights are off, and the house smells like a gift shop scented candle burning in another room—cactus blossom and citrus. The sound of a television on a loud commercial break upstairs.

“I’ll be over tomorrow if you want to go pick up your car,” Nacho begins in an undertone. “Early. Before she notices. You just keep her in here until then—” But before he can quite slip out the door, Doña Salamanca makes her slow way around the corner.

“Ignacio?” she calls into the dark.

“I’m here, Doña,” he calls back. “And look who else is here.”

He leans over and flicks the rocker switch beside the door. Doña Salamanca gasps.

“Mijo!”

Tuco’s been silent the whole drive, sniffling like he’s coming down from something, but he turns and smiles—genuinely, Nacho thinks, if a little strained.

“I’m back, Abuelita.”

They embrace. Nacho politely averts his eyes, because he’s not sure how today’s version of Tuco would take to being seen with his head cradled in his abuela’s hands.

“Did you see the geysers?”

“So many geysers. And a big fu—A big polar bear.”

Doña Salamanca draws back, her brow furrowed. “Polar bear?”

Nacho puts in, “They move further south every year.”

“Oh,” Doña Salamanca says.

“Global warming.”

“It’s sad,” Tuco agrees. He leans over to Nacho and snarls in English, “You _said_ they had _everything_.”

“Mijito—where’s your necklace?”

A muscle in Tuco’s jaw twitches. “Lost it.”

If Doña Salamanca notices he’s speaking through his teeth, she doesn’t comment on it. “You wash up for dinner. Take a shower. You must want one after the road. Ignacio, you’re staying for—?”

“I should let you and—”

“Stay,” Tuco growls. “Start chopping the onions.”

He doesn’t quite stomp off up the stairs, if only because Doña Salamanca disapproves of stomping on her carpets. Nacho checks his watch. A good thing he’d cleared his schedule for the day. He hadn’t really expected to be wrapped up in this past noon, but—

“ _La Otra_ is still on,” he says. “Let us make dinner for you—I don’t want you to miss it.”

She checks if he’s sure, shooting a look back up over her shoulder, at the upstairs room where the light of the television screen still flickers over the wall. Nacho assures her he’s sure, that there’s nothing to worry about, they’ll all have dinner together and Tuco will tell them all about his road trip. She squeezes his hand. “Such a sweet boy,” she says. On her way up the stairs, gripping the railing, she says, “Both such sweet boys.”

Nacho heads into the kitchen, flicking on the lights and retrieving onions from the pantry, a knife from the second drawer, because Doña Salamanca doesn’t have a knife rack. Upstairs, the shower turns on. Nacho swallows a small, bitter flare of anger— _Right back here again, nothing’s changed, all we've gotten is three weeks older_ —and starts chopping.

**:::**

Tuco looks a fraction less ‘obviously fresh from jail’ when he trudges downstairs, not that it matters much. He’s thrown on a crisp white t-shirt and a pair of faded jeans he must have had stashed away in the guest room, and no socks. There’s a nasty-looking bruise starting on his right foot. Nacho recalls watching him kick a loose desert rock high into the sky.

“You doing alright?” Nacho tries. It could be a dangerous question.

“What the fuck do you think?” He gestures to the stove, eyes narrowed. “Fajitas?”

“What can I say? It turns out your abuela likes Tex-Mex.”

“Bull _shit_ she does.”

“She asked if I would make them for her last week.”

“Bull _shit_ she did.”

He leans over and turns the burner up to high heat, scowling. Nacho catches a whiff of _Zest_ soap. It doesn’t seem worth arguing the point any further. Tuco stalks over to the pantry and wrenches open the door and begins rustling around.

Well, at least he’s in a better mood than he was in the car. Nacho nudges some onions to the edge of the cast iron as they begin to blacken.

“We going to talk about anything?” he presses after a minute.

Silence. Just bags rustling.

“ _La Otra_ is only on another ten minutes.”

“I know what you did.”

It’s the same sickening sensation as spinning out on a sheet of black ice. Nacho watches a red pepper pop and spit and wither in the pan.

When forces himself to turn around, he finds Tuco holding up—not a gun, not a knife, but an open box of _Better Cheddars_.

“What?”

“You’ve been here,” Tuco says, quiet and dangerous. “You’ve been making dinner for her. You take my stash, Nacho?”

“Your—what?”

“My crystal. I keep it in here—” He gives the half-empty box a little shake, “because my abuela doesn’t eat these. You take it?”

Nacho sets the spatula aside and tries not to sound too overtly appalled. “You keep _crystal_ in your abuela’s pantry?”

Tuco looks back at him, dark and unblinking.

“No,” Nacho says at last, “no, Tuco, I didn’t take it. You think if I wanted crystal I couldn’t get my own? What makes you think Doña Salamanca didn’t find it and throw it out?”

“My abuela doesn’t eat these. She likes _Cheez-Its_.”

“Maybe she ran out of _Cheez-Its_. I don’t know, Tuco. Maybe she knocked the box over. You check the floor?”

“It’s not on the fucking floor.”

“Maybe she decided to clean out the pantry while you were jacking off to _polar bears_ in _Wyoming_.”

Tuco throws the _Better Cheddars_ against the wall. It breaks apart like a small explosion, about half the box raining down on the linoleum. They stand in silence for a moment—then Nacho hurries to retrieve the dustpan and broom from the corner. Tuco takes over the work on the stove, switching up the burner higher still.

Nacho keeps his shoulder turned so Tuco won’t see how hard he’s shaking.

He’s knocking the last of the spilled crackers into the trash when he finds his voice again. “Don Hector was here last week.”

“You’re saying my tío took my stash? You’re trying to blame him now?”

“I’m saying when I called him to say you’d been arrested, he called you an ungrateful little cabrón and threw a table.”

“ _I’m_ an ungrateful cabrón? I was _fucking set up_!”

They both look up at the ceiling. Commercial break, some dickweasel trying to sell insurance, going at top volume. No creaking floorboards, no other sound.

Nacho lets out a breath and holds up the box of _Better Cheddars_. “Still a few of these left in the box. You want me to save them?”

“Give them here,” Tuco mutters, pointedly quiet. He wrenches the box out of Nacho’s hands, sets it on the counter, digs into it up to his elbow, pulls out a handful and shoves it into his mouth.

“You’re going to spoil your appetite, you keep doing that.”

Tuco laughs—a sound that used to be a happy one, a warm burst of noise, but now, like everything else about him, comes with a sharp, angry edge. Still, when he looks up, his expression has brightened marginally.

“You’re wondering about all that shit today, huh?” he says.

It might be a trick question. Nacho tilts his head to the side, a half shrug.

“I’m out.”

“What?”

“I’m out of distribution. I’m out of…”

Nacho’s certain he’s heard something wrong.

Tuco turns back to the burner. “I’m just _out_. Whatever. Hope you’re good at counting.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What the fuck is there to understand?” Anger spiking in his voice again. “Apparently I’m ‘erratic’ and I ‘draw too much attention,’ so he’s cutting me off. Actually—Don Eladio’s cutting me off. You believe that shit?”

Nacho replies that he barely believes it.

“You know what _I_ don’t understand?” Tuco continues. “How it is that _I’m_ the one who got fucked here and _I’m_ the one getting punished for it! How is that right, Nacho? _How is that right?_ ”

Nacho supposes it’s not right at all.

“That old BASTARD knew what he was doing! He set me up! And when I find him I'm going to turn him inside out! I’m going to shove a bag of _Werther’s Originals_ down his throat and watch him choke on it! I’m going to leave him tied to some nursing home bed for a hundred days and I’m not going to let him move but I’m going to keep him alive, like that sick shit in _Seven_ with Morgan Freeman!”

He goes on like this for a while, getting more creative. Nacho covertly checks his watch. Last two minutes of _La Otra_.

“If you’re out,” he interrupts quietly, “then what are you doing?”

Tuco pauses mid-rant. His face falls, but his tone, when he speaks, is perfectly indifferent. “Nothing. Whatever I want, you know? Listen—Have you got anything? I’m crashing hard here.”

“Half a cookie, out in the car. Might have melted today.”

“Only half? You bitch out after _half_? Where is it—behind the speakers?”

“I’ll get it.” He replaces the broom and dustpan in the corner and heads for the door.

“Nacho.” A note of danger. Nacho turns. Tuco isn’t looking at him. The fajitas are well on their way to blackened, and he doesn’t switch off the burner. “You don’t tell No-Doze and Gonzo.”

“Of course.” He starts to leave again, but—

Another warning, dangerous, “Hey.”

 _Oh, for fuck’s sake._ “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry about the—” He gestures vaguely to the pantry. “It was probably Tío, like you said. I told him where I kept my stash a few months back.”

“We’re cool.”

“Just in prison, if someone tries to jack your shit—”

Nacho refrains from rolling his eyes. “It must have been tough,” he says. _For the whole twenty minutes you were in there._

“Are you getting that cookie or you want to stand around talking shit?”

This time Nacho’s able to make it to the front door without interruption. But he pauses there, with his hand on the doorknob, looking at the living room. Doña Salamanca’s sofas are in perfect order, with a colorful woven wool blanket folded neatly over the back of one. Nacho looks at it for a long while before heading out to the car.

**:::**


End file.
